Towards a Future Internet: expert workshop

Study background

Carried out for European Commission DG Information Society under SMART programme

Runs Feb. 2009 – Nov. 2010

Study team: Colin Blackman, Ian Brown, Jonathan Cave, Simon Forge, Karmen Guevara, Lara Srivastava, Motohiro Tsuchiya & Malte Ziewitz

Advisory panel: Rudolf van der Berg, Erik Bohlin, Jon Crowcroft, Xavier Dalloz, William Drake, Chris Marsden, Ian Miles & Jun Murai

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Goals of the study

To explore what a future Internet should be - by researching the possible social, psychological, technological and economic options for its development and their likely socio- economic impacts:

1. Explore the past - examine prior studies - analyse how the current Internet evolved to date, its main drivers and effects

2. Define possible future scenarios and assess likely socio-economic impacts - investigate the interrelations between technological, social, psychological and economic trends and developments related to a future Internet, verified using Delphi surveys

3. Produce a single preferred vision for Europe of a Future Internet, in terms of each of the 4 forces

Scenarios

not predictions of the future, but internally consistent stimulants for discussion that take into account the likely social, technical and economic trends identified by environment scan, over 200 expert respondents to our online Delphi survey and our first workshop in Brussels

Smooth Trip - the knowledge-based Internet economy

Internet pervasive across public and private life; a major engine of social progress and economic growth

Online education and retraining critical to a high-value-add European economy with ageing workforce

Work and relationships increasingly conducted remotely. Many services (e.g. healthcare) provided partially online, through collaboration between SMEs

Digital divides narrowed due to focus on usability, lower cost and greater demand-driven innovation

Smooth Trip - the knowledge-based Internet economy

Internet development incremental, in response to commercial and public needs. Clients are mobile with augmented reality, projected UIs and fluid interaction with “things” and environmental sensors

Strong govt. emphasis on consumer protection and privacy increases user trust and online interaction

Some govts. impose restrictions on access in line with legal and cultural norms; some businesses use increased controls to capture greater revenue share. Online user resistance to both strengthens

Going Green - the green Internet economy

Internet is foundation of a sustainable society and an emerging green economy based around monitoring, controlling, adjustment, management, automation and substitution of carbon-intensive activities

ICTs become much more energy-efficient. Virtualised server farms migrate seamlessly between under-utilised renewable energy sources

Mobile platforms (inc. LEO comms), computational linguistics, geospatial technologies and visual analytics become key to disaster response

Going Green - the green Internet economy

Home working becomes norm; telepresence replaces much business travel and some tourism

Social networking tools reduce social divisions within and between nations, and used to build political support for collective action to cope with environmental disasters

Remote regions and developing countries highly connected as the basis for outsourcing of much information work

Commercial Big Brother

Internet replaces broadcast TV, as a largely commercial channel for entertainment, retailing and advertising

High-speed access is built to the home only with govt. subsidy and removal of regulatory constraints, strengthening large ISP dominance

Immersive, interactive video content consumes most user time and 95% of bandwidth. Access is mainly through DRM-heavy proprietary hardware

Merged ISPs/search engines/social networking sites offer walled gardens featuring high-quality access to video content and interactive services. They slowly merge with major entertainment conglomerates, with close links to retailers

Commercial Big Brother

Tacit cooperation between governments and the providers of the new “opiate of the masses”, who block access to politically controversial content. Internet becomes increasingly fragmented and nationalised

Users are intensively profiled to support targeted advertising, with no effective global privacy regulation

Security concerns used to justify lock-down of network, with e-ID requirements severely restricting anonymous speech and data retention laws squeezing user privacy

Emergence of the e-Demos

Power migrates to the people in a user-built ‘Connected Society’. “Prosumers” have a wide choice of net access, easily-programmable devices and tools to build shared secure environments for work and leisure

Strong political demand for “user rights” such as privacy, free expression, transparency, trust, fraud-resistance, consumer protection and fair, honest governance

Much stronger participation in online communities, which build social cohesion and political power of formerly disconnected minority groups

Emergence of the e-Demos

Heavy demand in developing world for low-cost access devices leads to a global market of 10bn+ clients and peer production of many services

Low barriers to entry lead to a global online marketplace of billions of micro-enterprises. Infrastructure operators are regulated as public utilities

Security mechanisms are collaborative rather than controlling

A messy, inefficient and highly diverse society populates the “managed chaos” of the Internet

Goals for today

1. Compare the different scenarios, in terms of their social and economic impact: which elements from each are the most desirable for a more sustainable (or otherwise better) world?

2. How will current technological, social and economic trends lead to the different scenarios proposed? What is the impact of different architectural choices (NGN, clean-slate approaches, non-IP, end-to-end principle, openness, embedded security) in enabling the different scenarios?

3. How will policy options (e.g. network neutrality) impact on the emergence of the different scenarios? What should be the future priorities for ICT research in Internet architectures and infrastructures?

Agenda

0900-0930

Welcome and overview of project

0930-1000

In pairs/threes: key elements in four scenarios (goal 1)

1000-1030

Whole-group discussion

1030-1045

Coffee break

1045-1230

In three groups: isolating the key social, economic, technical scenario trends and their inter-relationship (goal 2)

1230-1300

Sandwich lunch

1300-1400

Groups report back; Plenary discussion

1400-1415

Overview of European Commission Future Internet actions

1415-1530

In three groups: identifying Internet-focused R&D and policy actions that promote positive trends (goal 3)

1530-1545

Coffee break

1545-1630

Groups report back; Plenary discussion